Rector's Ramblings

A sermon on Mark 1:21-28

We are concluding our short series of sermons on the person of Jesus Christ. Throughout this Epiphany season we have been thinking about who this Jesus is that we follow as Christians. We have thought about Jesus as a child to be adored, a God to be worshipped, a Saviour to be followed, a Lord to be obeyed…and today, we are thinking about Jesus as a healer with authority, to be trusted. And we are considering this fascinating passage from Mark 1, which you can follow on the sheet in the pews.

It’s a story that is set in Capernaum, the home town of Peter and Jesus has gone into the synagogue and was teaching there. And in verse 22 we read this statement from Mark: “The people were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes.”

This is a curious statement for Mark to make because surely the teachers of the law had the ultimate spiritual authority. They had been the spiritual leaders in that community for years, they had deep learning, they were revered for their knowledge, they were, in many respects, the brokers of truth. Isn’t that what authority is all about? How could Mark say, then, that Jesus taught as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law? In its essence, authority is the right someone has - or a right that an institution holds - to enforce or expect obedience from others. Certainly the teachers of the law had that type of authority; they had legal qualifications, they had the right to judge people and so people would indeed obey the teachers of the law.

But I believe there are two types of authority and those who are in spiritual leadership must be absolutely clear about this. There is Positional Authority and there is Relational Authority.

Positional Authority is where someone expects people to respect him or her because of the position they hold. Some people demand or expect respect to be given to them because of their title or the role they have played in the church. Sometimes this is made explicit: “I am the Rector and, as spiritual leader of this community, I expect you to do what I say…” But more often than not, Positional Authority is expressed in passive-aggressive behaviour. Those who rely on Positional Authority speak and act in ways that make others feel inferior to them in terms of knowledge or experience or wisdom. Reliance on Positional Authority may draw on a passive-aggressive way of being that suggests the title someone has is enough in itself: people should listen and obey…

But Positional Authority is a dangerous and ungodly thing. It is absolutely contrary to the example of Christ who, we read in Philippians 2, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” The example of Jesus Christ is the exact opposite of Positional Authority: it is the absolute denunciation of Positional Authority. He did not cling to his own Positional Authority but became a servant instead…

So we must beware of leaders who act out of Positional Authority because it is not the way of Christ. Instead, Jesus acted out of Relational Authority.

Relational Authority is exhibited by leaders who seek to win respect, who seek to be transparent with those they lead, transparent about their mission and vision, transparent about their own failings and shortcomings and seek to minister out of a respect that has been earned. As Paul says of Jesus in Philippians 2: “[He] made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being found in human likeness…he humbled himself…”

Now that is not to say that leaders who operate out of Relational Authority are not strong leaders: the very opposite is often true! Relational Authority can only happen when a leader is clear and focussed but in the clarity and the strength and the vision there must always be a deeply human and humble approach. And it is because of the humanity of the Relational approach that authority is clearly exercised.

Most of us are more attracted to following Relational leaders than Positional leaders because we recognise in them a deep humanity and they allow us to be human too.

And so, when Mark says, “[Jesus] taught them as one who having authority”, that is a reflection on his Relational Authority; that he was humble and deeply human and was allowing people to meet him in their humanity too.

And because they had become so used to people leading out of Positional Authority, we read in verse 22 that the people were “astounded at his teaching”. This notion of amazement is a strong word: it almost has the connotation of putting people into shock or even panic such was the strength and power of his Relational Authority. The like of this had not been seen before!

And so we are not surprised that even the evil spirits went into panic and shock! Verse 23: “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?’ Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’” What is interesting here, of course, is that an evil spirit knew who Jesus was but the religious teachers of the law had not worked it out for themselves! How ironic that the holy men should have missed the truth in their midst and yet the unclean should recognise Jesus for who he was.

And the unclean spirit confesses a deep knowledge of Jesus. First, he says, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” and by saying that, he recognised the authority that resided in the humanity of Christ, raised in Nazareth. Second, he says, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God” and by that he is recognising the divinity of Christ. But the unclean spirit knew who Jesus was but refused to submit to his authority. And, of course, the call on us as Christians is not just to know who Jesus is but to submit our lives to his authority and power. Not just Jesus of Nazareth, not just the Holy One of God - but Jesus our Lord.

And it is because the evil spirit would not sit under the Lordship of Christ that Jesus commands him to be quiet. Verse 25: “But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent…’” Jesus is not interested in academic acknowledgement of who he is. Jesus doesn’t want us to speak about him purely from our knowledge. Jesus wants us to speak out about him from a position of us accepting his Lordship. It is easy to get caught up in academic debates about God; whether he created the world in six days or through evolution, whether Christianity is the only way to heaven or all religions are equal, whether Jesus was fully God or just a good man - and there is a time and a place for all of these questions…But the ultimate question is whether or not we are prepared to sit under his Lordship and give our lives over to him as disciples…

An intellectual belief in Jesus is worthless. The issue is how much authority Jesus has in your life. Martin Luther, the great 16^th-century Reformer said that, “The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns”. We can say Christ is the Saviour. We can say that Christ is Lord. We can say that Jesus is God. But can I say that Christ is my Saviour? Can I say that Christ is my Lord? Can I say that Jesus is my God?

And so, to prove his authority, Jesus heals the man and drives out the unclean spirit. By this exorcism, he proved his authority over Satan and the uncleanness of this world.

And Mark concludes this passage by saying: “At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee”. The Gospel – the Good News – of Jesus Christ began to spread because of word and deed. And so it is with us as a church here in Linton, that the Good News of Jesus will spread throughout our community as we engage in mission through word and deed. Our Mission Action Plan is not a paper exercise: we want to engage in the Five Marks of Mission that are on the pewsheet, we want to measure all that we say and do against those Five Marks and be absolutely focussed on the Mission Life of St. Mary’s Church. Our Mission Action Plan is a living document, not something that we have read once and filed away. We want Christ to be known through this community and commit ourselves as a church to this vision.

This passage from Mark confirms the truth that Jesus Christ has authority over us. It is not a Positional Authority but a Relational Authority.

This passage confirms for us that intellectual knowledge about Christ is not enough. Instead, we need to submit to him as Lord.

This passage confirms for us that the fame of Christ will spread through Linton as we engage in both word and deed. We must be a church committed to Christ’s mission in this community.

Who is this Jesus we follow? He is a child to be adored, a God to be worshipped, a Saviour to be followed, a Lord to be obeyed, a Healer to be trusted. And so, as we draw this Epiphany season to a close, we re-commit ourselves to Jesus Christ and ask that, this coming year, the Good News will be spread throughout the community through his mission, which we engage in here at St. Mary’s. Amen.

A sermon on Revelation 2:1-7

OK, we’ve looked at Chapter One, studying something of the cultural and historical context of how this vision was given to the apostle John - probably in about AD96 on the island of Patmos whilst he was in exile under the Emperor Domitian. We’ve gone through some incredible theology about the nature of Christ, the Trinitarian God whom we worship and the nature of the church of God, past, present and future. We don’t need to recap on any of this again.

And now the letter from John changes a bit as we move away from the introductory vision and move towards the beginning of application to the church. And chapters 2 through to 4 are a group of letters; one to each of the seven churches to whom John is writing this corporate letter. As we noted, he was Bishop of Ephesus and had spiritual care over churches in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. And the letter is to go to seven of these: Ephesus, Smyra, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicia.

And these are not a random selection of churches and the order they come in is not random because there was a circular travelling route around Asia Minor and these churches are listed in the order that a messenger might go if he was to visit each one in turn. And the first city to be visited by the messenger is Ephesus.

OK, let’s have a brief look at the city of Ephesus; a brief bit of history so we can put the letter into some context before we look at the letter itself.

Introduction to the city of Ephesus

Ephesus, for many years, had a been a major city in the period when John’s letter was sent to them. There was a population of about 400,000- 500,000, which made it one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world. There had been populations there since about 6000BC, the Neolithic Era and it is still a key area for archaeology relating to the Bronze Age era.

Ephesus was a great port city, built around the Kayster River and so it became a target for invading forces and, throughout the centuries, many armies had invaded Ephesus and taken it over. Probably as a result of this history, Ephesus was a pretty cosmopolitan city: it was multicultural and tolerant in its ethnic diversity. Eventually, though, it became part of the Roman Empire and the character of the city changed dramatically. The citizens were subjected to huge tax rises and the city was plundered of its treasures. For a short time, it became self-governing but just before the time of Christ it came back under Roman rule and became one of the most advanced cities in the world.

There was a huge theatre there which seated 25,000 people who might watch drama or they might watch gladiatorial games. There were huge public baths, a massive library and 4 major aqueducts. There were water mills, a sawmill and a marble factory too. By any account, Ephesus was a major city in the Roman Empire and we are not surprised that it was the site for a Temple of Domitian who was, as we have been thinking over the last few weeks, the Emperor at the time John received his vision of the Revelation.

But Ephesus was perhaps most famous for its Temple of Artemis that was completed about 550 BC and was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Artemis was a Greek goddess, known as Diana to the Romans, and the temple worship was at the heart of the cultural life of the city. And so, with a Temple to Domitian and a Temple for Artemis, the Christians in Ephesus were daily confronted with pagan images and had to be absolutely sure and confident about who they wanted to worship: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And Ephesus had been a crucial centre for Christianity almost since its inception as a religious movement. Paul had lived there from AD 52-54 and he had organised some of his missionary journeys from there. As well as establishing the church he wrote his Letter to the Ephesians to in AD 62, when he was in prison in Rome. He probably wrote 1 Corinthians while he was there and we hear about one particular incident from the life of Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19:23-41. I won’t go through the story now – you can read it yourself later - but basically Paul had upset the workers who made shrines and statues dedicated to the goddess Artemis and, because of the rise of Christianity, they were fearful that they would lose their trade. There was a public disturbance and a meeting held in the theatre and, as a result, Paul had to leave the city quickly and head off for Macedonia. But the church continued to flourish anyway and by the time John sent this letter to them they were well established.

The seven letters

We are going to look at the detail of the letter in a minute but first, I want to make some comment about the seven letters together. We know that seven is the biblical number for wholeness and completeness and therefore these letters are written to seven separate, historical churches but they are also meant for every church – the whole church – throughout time. But there is also something interesting about how these letters are structured: there is a commonality of structure across them all, which you might want to briefly look at with me.

First, each letter begins with a description of Jesus Christ, which relates directly to the vision of Christ we studied last week in chapter 1. To Ephesus, he is “the one who holds the seven stars”. To Pergamum, he is the “one who has the sharp, double-edged sword”. To Thyatira, he is the one “with eyes like blazing fire” and so on…So, there is continuity of how Christ is being described here and, as we will go on to see, each description is related to the particular problem that each church faces. More of that later…

Second, each church (except Laodicea) is commended by Christ for something that they have done or continue to do.

Thirdly, each church (except Smyrna and Philadelphia) are criticised by Christ. And, as an aside, it’s good to see that the commendation always comes before the criticism and I think we have a lot to learn from that: because we are often too quick to criticise and too slow to commend which is not the way of Christ at all. In these letters, Jesus has something against the churches but he always builds them up first before critiquing them and we would do well to learn from that pattern.

Fourth, there is a corrective command given to each church: Jesus says to them, “This is your problem and this is what you must do about it”.

Fifth, there is a commitment given by Christ to those who obey his teaching.

So that is the structure to all the letters: Introduction, Commendation, Critique, Command, Commitment.

OK, that’s a long introduction! Let’s get into the letter to the believers at Ephesus.

The message to Ephesus

John starts in verse 1 by relaying Christ’s words: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write…”

Now we had an interesting question from Yannick last week about what this reference to an angel means and I think the answer is the same as it was in 1:20. The word ‘angel’ here means ‘messenger’ and can be taken either as the leaders of the church or those preaching the Gospel there or even the messenger who would receive the letter at Ephesus and read it out to the congregation. We will be meeting angels from the heavenly realm later in Revelation but I don’t think that’s what is referred to here.

“These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.” This is imagery we thought about last week, so we don’t need to repeat it here. But we remind ourselves that this is a symbol of God’s power and a encouragement that he is in control of the destiny of his church. Remember last week, that Domitian’s son, who had died in infancy, was pictured on the back of coins, juggling seven stars as an indication that he had become a divine being. But we are reminded here that it is Jesus who holds the seven stars and he is in control.

We learnt last week that the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches, representative of the church throughout time and this is an encouragement that God is with us always. But there is one subtle difference in 2:1 from 1:13. In 1:13, we are told that Jesus was “among” the lampstands, indicating his presence with them. But in 2:1, we are told he “walks among” the lampstands and this is an important difference because what is being indicated here is that Jesus is active in his churches and his activity will never end. [John’s use of the present active participle is different from the present active tense: the former suggests a never-ending activity, the latter an activity that will come to an end]. Jesus is not just a benign presence in the church. He is actively walking among us, working in his church, stirring us up, encouraging us, leading us by his Spirit. Jesus Christ is our High Priest and his priestly work continues in our midst and I guess there is something of a challenge here, a rhetorical question that we need to answer: “Where is Jesus Christ at work in our church?” If we asked the question, “Is Christ in our midst?”, the answer is clearly, ‘Yes’. But to ask the question, “Where is Jesus Christ at work in our church?” demands a different response from us and a different perspective on our community life together.

Let’s move on to verse 2: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.” This triad is not unique to Revelation in the New Testament. In 1 Thessalonians 1:3, for example, Paul says, “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”. Deeds, toil and perseverance seemed to be hallmarks of a congregation that was pursuing Christ. But what do these words mean?

The word used for ‘work’ or ‘deeds’ is the root word for our word ‘energy’ and it seems that the church in Ephesus was indeed an energetic church, a busy church, a church that others would look at and say, “Wow! There’s loads going on there!” It’s a word that indicates practical labour: manual labour, the workers in the vineyard effort, activity. Ephesus was a church that was known for what it did and presumably other congregations were in awe at all they managed to achieve.

“I know your deeds, your toil…” The word here for toil doesn’t just mean hard work: it means working yourself to the point of exhaustion! It sounds like Ephesus was a ‘Purpose Driven Church’ dedicating themselves to Christian ministry, taking themselves to the verge of complete exhaustion.

“I know your deeds, your toil and your perseverance”. Perseverance here refers to the ability to stand one’s ground in the face of attack. Now, we might think that the attack which they are persevering is the Domitian persecution: that Christ is commending them for their ability to withstand physical and economic persecution. But the rest of the verse seems to imply something different and a bit disconcerting, really: “I know your deeds, your toil and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.”

Actually, what we have here is a picture of a church that is absolutely driven by the desire to retain doctrinal purity: a church that is so intent on pursuing orthodox faith and practice and keeping out any false witness that they have pushed themselves to the point of exhaustion! Now, let’s unpack this a bit because there is something positive to be explored here but something negative too and it is at the very heart of what we are studying tonight.

Firstly, we need to consider the positive aspect of this - and it is positive, because Jesus is commending them for this. The church at Ephesus that was developing in a multicultural environment with a diversity of religious and philosophical views, the church that was emerging in the shadow of the Temples dedicated to Domitian and Artemis, knew that they had to hold fast to the truths about Christianity. They could not allow the faith to be watered down by endorsing pagan idolatry or false doctrines. They needed to stay true to Christ and were determined to root out false teaching.

So who were these false teachers who needed to be opposed? If we look at the evidence of the other letters in the New Testament and also some references within Revelation that we will come to another day, it seems that the Ephesians were opposing a group called The Gnostics. Now we can’t unpack Gnostic teaching too much right now but they saw themselves as a very ‘spiritual’ sect. They were concerned with the heavenly Jesus rather than the earthly Jesus. They appealed to the Spirit of God for the revelation of truth rather than the experience and words of the apostles. They believed that there were secrets and mysteries in the heart of God that could only be revealed to a select few, through special rituals. Gnosticism was rife in the early church and lots of the New Testament is written and developed in opposition to Gnosticism.

Well, in verse 2, Jesus says, “I know you cannot tolerate wicked men…” and we might think that it’s a bit of an over-reaction to call them ‘wicked’ just because they were not doctrinally pure. But what is being condemned here is not so much their beliefs but what resulted from their beliefs.

Gnostics believed that the body (made of matter) is essentially evil and the spirit (housed within the body) is essentially pure and that resulted in one of two activities: Some Gnostics went in for asceticism, which means they tried to overcome their bodies through extreme spiritual practices like fasting, self-flagellation, living in solitary places and so on. But other Gnostics went to the other extreme and said that, if the body is evil, it can’t affect the spirit which is pure and so they went in for orgies and drunkenness and excessive behaviours. And it is these two extremes that are condemned here as being evil and not to be tolerated in the church.

And, in the light of the Gnostic challenge, Jesus says in verse 3: “You have persevered and have endured hardship for my name, and have not grown weary.” These Christians in Ephesus are being commended by Christ for holding fast to the truth of the Christian doctrines. They would not tolerate doctrines that led to a false spirituality and, even though they had toiled, they had not yet grown weary.

We have something to learn here, I think, about the importance of holding fast to the Christian message. Like the church in Ephesus, we are surrounded on every side by the temptation to relativise the Gospel, by tolerating lax behaviour that is unbecoming of the church but also, by tolerating practices that are ‘too extreme’ in their spirituality. There is a middle way that Christ calls us to follow and like the Ephesians, we need to be zealous for that.

But…

…Jesus is not entirely happy with the Ephesian church, verse 4: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love”. The sad truth is, that the Ephesians were so determined to be doctrinally pure that they had forgotten the very heart of the Gospel. They were so determined to keep to the truth of the Gospel that they had forgotten the centrality of love. The church at Ephesus had fallen into a common trap: Christian activity is not the same as Christian love.

“You have forsaken your first love.”

What does Jesus mean by this? What love is he referring to? There are at least three different opinions about this…

Some commentators think it refers to their love for Jesus himself; that in all their busyness, they had forgotten all about Jesus.

Some commentators believe that it refers to their love for each other; that their activity meant their were driven by programs, not people.

Other commentators think it refers to a love of humanity in general; that they were devoted to evangelistic activities but were more concerned to ‘win souls’ than to ‘love people’.

It’s difficult to isolate any one of these and perhaps all three of them are right.

“You have forsaken your first love”.

You have become so busy doing Christian things that you have neglected love for Christ. You have neglected love for each other. You have neglected love for the world.

And this provides us with a deep moment of self-reflection because the truth is that this forsaking of our first love creeps up on us over a period of time. We may be so busy at church, preparing so many sermons, going to so many prayer meetings, involving ourselves in so many youth groups and worship groups, being on so many committees, that we think we are doing it all out of love and commitment. But actually, over a period of time, the love has decreased and the activity has increased. If we get off the merry-go-round for just a moment, we see that love has very little to do with our motivation and that, actually, we are just caught up in a round of busyness.

But that’s not where we started, is it? If we look back, each one of us began out of a desire to love and to serve but, over a period of time, the motivation has imperceptively changed and we can’t even pinpoint a time when it began to happen…

This is not the life Jesus has called us to; no matter how well intentioned we are, no matter how much zeal we have in pursuing the doctrines of Christ, no matter how much we may love the church, if we are not motivated by love, this is not the life Jesus has called us to. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13? “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

A salutary warning…

But, in this Book of Revelation, Christ gives us an option to right this wrong in our lives. “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” If you like your sermons to have three points all starting with the same letter, we can talk about the three R’s: Remember, Repent, Repeat. Let’s just think briefly about these three:

First, they are called to Remember…A number of years earlier, Paul had written to the church at Ephesus and in Ephesians 1:15 Paul says, “I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints…” The church at Ephesus had been known for its love! In Ephesians 6:24, Paul says, “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love”. The church at Ephesus had been known for its love! In Ephesians 4:2, Paul writes, “Bear with one another in love”. The church at Ephesus had been known for its love! In Ephesians 4:15, Paul writes that they are “speaking the truth in love”. The church at Ephesus had been known for its love!

But now, at John writes to them in AD 96, they had forgotten how to love. They had become so busy, so absorbed with doctrinal purity, they had forgotten how to love.

They needed to Remember…and having remembered, they needed to Repent. The word Repent is very interesting: it’s not just about saying sorry…it basically means that we are walking in one direction and we need to stop, turn round and walk back in the other direction. Repentance is a definite moment of decision and an act of the will. We recognise that we are heading the wrong way and we make a conscious decision to turn around and head the other way. Having remembered the height they had fallen from, the church at Ephesus needed to repent: to make a conscious decision to stop, turn round and walk the other way.

And so, having remembered and repented, they needed to repeat the things they did at first. Of course, it would be easy for them to read that and think that they had to undertake a new type of activity. We are so geared up towards activity that it is hard for us to think any differently: “What does God want me to do for him?” That’s not the question. “What does God want me to be for him?” - that’s the question!

Remember. Repent. Repeat. That is the calling on each one of us from this passage. And Jesus follows this up with a warning in verse 5: “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place”.

Quite simply, it doesn’t matter how busy we might be as a church, unless we are motivated by love, the light will go out. Sure, we can continue to fool people and to amaze people with how much we do and how much we seem to achieve but if we are not motivated by love, the light will have gone out. What a terrible thought…

We are coming to the end now and I want to avoid verse 6 at this point: “But you have this in your favour: You hate the practices of Nicolaitans, which I also hate”. We can afford to skip this verse because 2:15, we will come across the Nicolaitans again and we can deal with them in more depth there. But finally, I want to just comment on the promise of God in 2:7: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

Here, Jesus calls us back to the Garden of Eden and his promise to us is that creation at the last will be as creation at the beginning. Salvation is a cyclical event: for those who are saved in Christ, we are going full circle. What we lost in Adam will be restored to us in Christ. The tree of life that is promised to us, if we obey his words is the promise of eternal life. But its important that we are told it is “in the paradise of God”.

The word ‘Paradise’ was originally a Persian word, which means a ‘walled garden’ or a ‘park surrounded by a wall’. So it speaks to us of the protection of God. Paradise is eternal life, where we are walled in by the love of God, we are protected by him, made safe and secure in him and this, of course, is yet another word of encouragement for the first hearers: dispelling their fears and anxieties.

So, as we have come to expect from the Book of Revelation, in just a few short verses we are confronted with deep theological truths: That God holds us in his hands, that God is not just present in his church, but active in his church, that he commends the pursuit of purity and doctrinal orthodoxy, that he wants us to stand firm in the face of false teaching and idolatry, that we are not to lose our love in the midst of all our busyness, that we are to undertake self-reflection to remember, to repent, to repeat what we once did, who we once were, that, if we don’t the light will go out and Christ will no longer walk amongst us, that if we pursue love, we will share in eternal life and be protected and walled in by the love of God for all eternity. Incredible truths and much for us to reflect on…

As a footnote, you may wonder what happened to the church at Ephesus. How does the story end? Well, certainly they responded because only 20 years later, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch wrote to them and said: “…to the church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory”.

But the long -term history was not as encouraging…In 614, the city was partially destroyed in an earthquake and then the harbour became silted up, so it lost its importance as a commercial centre. In the 8^th-century, its fortunes declined further and by the time of the 11^th-century Turkish conquest, it was just a small village.

Ephesus then went into extinction, and the church with it, but the neighbouring town was known – and is known – as Ayasaluk, which means ‘Saint-Theologian’ – a reference to the apostle John. Ephesus no longer exists. The church no longer exists there - but the legacy of John lives on and it is that legacy, this vision, this teaching, that we reflect on tonight and allow God to challenge us through so that we might glorify his name in our own lives and in our church.

A sermon on Revelation 1:9-20

Last week, we began our study of Revelation by looking at verses 1-8. Just eight verses of Scripture but packed with theological meaning. We thought about the context of this letter from John; that it was written, probably in AD96 under the reign of the Emperor Domitian who was persecuting the Christians and making life difficult for them, particularly because he carried the title ‘Lord and God’ and Christians were refusing to worship him. And the letter was sent from John, the Bishop of Ephesus who was in exile on the island of Patmos to his flock in Asia Minor: modern-day Turkey.

And he began the letter by convincing them that the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was with them in their troubles and that this is the God of history who had been worshipped since the days of Moses and before. The God who was, and is, and is to come.

And he ended that first part by recording the words of God in verse 8: “I am the Alpha and Omega”, the first and last, in whom is contained all wisdom, and might and knowledge and power and authority.

And so, far from creating a sense of fear and anxiety, this letter from John, which we call the Book of Revelation created a sense of comfort and peace amongst the believers; a deep sense of encouragement as they reflected on the fact that God was standing in their midst.

And, if we found last week’s portion of Scripture encouraging, then we should be even more encouraged this evening because what John gives us in verses 9-20 is an incredible picture, a vision, of Jesus, in all his glory. Again, we’re going to take it verse by verse and see what this passage has to tell us about the nature of Jesus Christ. So, let’s launch straight in at verse 9.

Introducing the vision

“I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom”. This is such a beautiful way of introducing himself; intensely pastoral, given the situation the churches of Asia Minor were in. He could have pulled rank on them, but he didn’t…By right, he could have said something like: “From Bishop John…” or “From John, an apostle of Jesus Christ…” or “From John, the disciple Jesus loved…” But he doesn’t do that…

Instead, he stands alongside them in their suffering: “John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom”. And I think this sentence shows what a wonderful pastor he really was. John is, in one sense, set apart from other Christians by his calling to be a Bishop but he is intensely bound with them too in a bond of love and so he re-iterates the equality we share, regardless of calling in the face of the Kingdom of God. There is no hierarchy in the kingdom. We are all brothers and sisters together, equal in the eyes of God.

And, of course, as companions in suffering and the kingdom, we are united not only together and not only with John but we are united with Christ too because suffering and kingdom – or suffering and glory – is the pattern of his own ministry. In Luke 24:26, we read: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter into glory?” The same pattern here for Jesus as for those first Christians, for John and for us too: earthly suffering followed by Kingdom glory.

And, because the pattern is the same for us as for Jesus, that adds extra weight to the words of John here in verse 9 when he says, “…the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Christ Jesus…” We are in Christ Jesus – we are united with him – through suffering and glory. This is an idea which Paul speaks of in Romans 6:3-5: “All of us were baptised into Christ Jesus…If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.”

So you see that we are integrally linked to Christ – we are in Christ through our experience of suffering and glory that we share with him.

And, here’s an interesting point because we have a dual location: we reside, quite literally, in two different places. John says in this verse that he is “in Christ” and then that he is “on Patmos”. He recognises that he has a spiritual location – in Christ and a physical location – on Patmos. There is a sort of dual citizenship going on here: that we citizens of heaven but also citizens of earth too and, of course, all the difficulties we face in life are primarily a result of the tensions we feel between our heavenly calling and our earthly location. The temptations we face, the sins we fall into, they are a result of the fact that we know we are Christians  and should behave in one way but the pull of the body is too great for us resist…

You’ve heard people say, “I can’t be in two places at once…” Well, actually, we can! We are “in Christ” and “in Linton” and that dual location is the source of our temptations and sin and struggles. We are in the world but not of it: it’s a paradox we need to live with to the best of our abilities…

So John locates himself geographically and spiritually in Christ and on the island of Patmos. But he then goes on, in verse 10, to accentuate the spiritual location as the most important of the two: “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit”. Two more definitions of his location, both with spiritual content.

So we have “in Christ”, “on Patmos”, “on the Lord’s Day”, “in the Spirit”.

“On the Lord’s Day” has caused some confusion in interpreting the Book of Revelation because the Day of God’s judgement, elsewhere in the Bible is referred to as the Day of the Lord. So some interpreters have assumed that John was taken in a vision to the Day of Judgement and all that he had to say in his prophecy was written from that perspective. But it’s probably much simpler than that. Early Christian literature from around the same time seems to suggest that ‘The Lord’s Day’ was a Sunday: the day set aside for the main festivals of Christian worship. And the fact that he was ‘in the Spirit’ suggests that he was praying.

So, here we have John, on a Sunday on the island of Patmos, saying his prayers, when the angel gives him this vision of God. Simple as that

But what was the content of this vision? Let’s unpack the next 10 verses together…

The content of the vision

Verse 10: “I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet”. The word used here for ‘loud’ is ‘megalein’: like megaphone. But it doesn’t really refer to volume so much as its grandness: a grand voice like a trumpet. And, of course, in those days, as in ours, in royal circles trumpets are used when royalty is about to enter the room. And that’s what about to happen here: John is saying his prayers and a grand voice, like a trumpet announces to him that something special is about to happen: royalty is about to appear…John is about to be given a vision; a vision from the King of kings and Lord of lords and it is so important, he is to write it down (verse 11) and send it to the seven churches in Asia Minor of which he was Bishop.

But, as we thought last week, the number seven is the biblical number that signifies wholeness and completeness. So there is a sense in which this vision is for every church throughout every age; the seven churches represent the whole Church throughout time. This is a vision for us as much as it was for the first Christians in Asia Minor in AD96.

So, not surprisingly, we read in verse 12: “I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me”. Now this seems a strange phrase, doesn’t it? How can you see a voice? We can only hear a voice, can’t we? But the word John uses for ‘see’ is a very particular one, ‘blepein’ - and it has more to do with understanding than physical sight: a bit like when someone explains a problem that you don’t understand and you say, “Oh, I see!” The word ‘blepein’ has to do with that type of sight; not so much vision with the eyes. So John says in verse 12, “I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me” and he is saying that he gives the voice full attention to understand the message.

And that contrasts with the next part of this verse where he says: “And when I turned, I saw seven lampstands”. The word for ‘saw’ used there is different: it is ‘eidon’, which can mean ‘I perceived’ in the sense of becoming aware of. A bit like, “I perceive the blowing of the wind” or “I perceive the beating of my heart”. So again, not so much to do with sight as perception and understanding. John didn’t actually, physically, see these things: they were matters of spiritual perception in his mind’s eye as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. So again, I hope that this takes the fear out of Revelation for us because these are not actual events that John saw happening but spiritual realities being played out in his mind’s eye.

So what is it that John perceives with his spiritual eye?

Verse 12: “I saw seven golden lampstands”. Now, of all the symbols that are recorded in the Book of Revelation this is actually the easiest to interpret, for one simple reason: John gives us a Starter for Ten: he tells us what it means! In verse 20, he says: “The seven lampstands are the seven churches”. So, that’s helpful… The seven golden lampstands he sees in verse 12 is the Church throughout all time: the people of God throughout history.

And this is an image the hearers would have been aware of, for two reasons: First it is linked to Zechariah 4 – a really important chapter in Scripture that we will be returning to many times over the coming few weeks. And there, Zechariah is given a vision from God and in the first part of that vision, verse 2, Zechariah says “I see a solid gold lampstand…and seven lights on it, with seven channels to the lights”. And secondly, of course, Jesus said in Matthew 5:14 to his followers: “You are the light of the world….People do not] light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand…In the same way, let your light shine…”

The church is the light of the world. And, for these Christians who needed so much encouragement during their time of persecution, they get that in this verse: Not only is their destiny and identity as light-bearers confirmed but in verse 13 they are told – we are told –: “among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man’”

Who is this who walks among the lampstands?

Who is this who walks through the Church for all time?

It is the Messiah, the one like a Son of Man, who was prophesied in Daniel 7:13. In Daniel’s vision, he says: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven”. This is the Messiah, the King of glory, the all-powerful one who walks amongst the Church.

We are not alone.

No matter how discouraged we may feel at times: we are not alone.

No matter how hard it may be to understand God’s purposes for us: we are not alone.

The Messiah walks amongst us in power and glory and authority.

And now John moves on to give a vivid description of this Messiah and as he describes the appearance of this son of man what he is actually doing is describing for us, in this picture language, the personality and nature of Jesus Christ.

So let’s work through this:

Verse 13: “dressed in a robe”. The robe is a symbol of authority: men of high rank in that society were denoted by their long, flowing robes. And it may also be a reference to the priestly role of Jesus, our High Priest by drawing our minds to Exodus 28:4 in which the priesthood of Aaron is denoted, in part, by his beautiful robe.

Verse 13 again: “dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a gold sash round his chest”. The sash is a bit like a girdle or tight belt and interestingly, this is probably a reference to the Ascension of Jesus. Workmen wore their belt, their sash, around their waist but Jesus’ belt is pulled up to his chest: his work is complete: he has ascended to glory: he is a workman no more. And the fact that it is a gold sash strengthens this interpretation because gold is the inheritance of royalty and a symbol of great wealth. As we saw last week, there are allusions here to Psalm 2 in which the Son of God receives the promise that the nations will be his inheritance.

Let’s move onto verse 14: “His head and hair were white like wool…”. I’ve mentioned before that the Old Testament books of Zechariah and Daniel are crucial for the interpretation of Revelation and this is another reference to Daniel, this time: 7:9. In that passage from Daniel, the Ancient of Days, the Judge of the World is described and, in part, it says: “the hair of his head was white like wool”. So here we have a reference to Jesus Christ as Judge of the World.

Moving on… “…his eyes were like blazing fire”. Let’s go back to Daniel’s vision of the Judge of the world, this time, 10:6: “Before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold…His face was like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches…” When Christ stands in judgement over the world – and each one of us, of course- his eyes will pierce into us and there is nothing that will remain hidden from him…

Verse 15: “His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace…” Where do you think we should go to interpret this? Daniel, of course! Back to 10:6 and his vision of the Judge of the World: “his arms and legs were like the gleam of burnished bronze”. Another reference to the power of Christ to stand in judgement over us, although there is something a bit deeper here: but I don’t want to speculate too much because the word John uses for bronze is a unique word and this is its only use in the Bible. And he seems to be referring to a mixture of alloys probably bronze (symbolising the power to Judge) and gold (symbolising his royal nature) but I’m getting beyond the boundary of my knowledge here, so I’ll shut up and move on!

Verse 15: “His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” If we go to Ezekiel 43:2, we see that this is a description for God: “I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters.” So here we have another, early, claim for the divinity of Christ: a claim that he is part of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Verse 16: “In his hand, he held seven stars…” OK, we know already that seven is the number of completeness and verse 20 tells us that the seven stars, like the seven lampstands are the churches: the Church of God throughout all history. And it is great encouragement to us all to know that God holds us safe in his hands.

But it’s also a critique of the Roman Empire too and a further reminder that it is God, not Domitian who rules the world. Sometime between AD77 and AD81, Domitian’s baby son died and he was declared a god to worship throughout the Empire. And on the back of Domitian coins, there was an image of his son juggling seven stars indicating his divine status. But John tells us here in verse 16 that it is actually Jesus Christ who holds the seven stars, not a Roman god. Jesus Christ has ultimate power and authority, not some pagan deity. So, next time you sing: “He’s got the whole world in his hands”, you might view the words of that hymn slightly differently!

Verse 16: “…and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword”. The word of God that issues out of the mouth of Christ is a word of judgement but it is a double-edged sword. Some people will hear Christ’s words and be set free. Some people will hear Christ’s words and be judged and condemned. How will you respond to the word of God through Christ, I wonder?

And finally in verse 16: “His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance”. The disciple John had seen Jesus’ face shine like the sun before, of course. We go back to Matthew 17 and the story of the Transfiguration. Jesus took Peter, James and John and led them up a high mountain and what does Matthew say in verse 2? “Then he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun…” And Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah and the transfiguration story is a reminder that Jesus is located within the line of Jewish prophets who announced the word of God to the world.

Verses 13-16 of Revelation are quite incredible! What a deeply profound vision of Christ. What incredible teaching for us and for the first Christians in Asia Minor about the nature and person of Christ. He is to be found in the midst of the churches. He has royal authority. His work is completed and he has ascended to heaven. He is Judge of the world. Nothing can escape his piercing gaze. He is Lord over heaven, earth and the church. He comes to set us free as well as judgement. He stands as a prophet to the nations.

All that deep theology in just three verses! Quite amazing!

Response to the vision

So we are not surprised at John’s response in verse 17: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” Quite understandable, really! A similar response to Daniel in 10:7: “Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground”. A similar response to Joshua in 5:14: “Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence…” Ezekiel 1:28: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell face down…”

So often, when the glory of the Lord appears people fall on their knees in awe and wonder and deep reverence. And it is right to do so. It is right to have a healthy fear of God, isn’t it?

But that fear is matched with a deep sense of reassurance of God’s love and care and compassion and that’s what we see in verse 17: “Then he placed his right hand on me and said, ‘Do not be afraid.’” There is something beautifully reassuring about human touch, isn’t there? The touch of the hand on the shoulder brought John comfort and it would have been a familiar touch for him too because we see exactly the same thing happening to him at the Transfiguration in Matthew 17: the two stories mirror each other…Matthew 17:6: “When the disciples [saw the transfiguration], they fell face down to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up’, he said. ‘Don’t be afraid’.”

A familiar touch of comfort for John. And many of us here tonight know that familiar touch of reassurance that Jesus so often brings to our own lives.

“Do not be afraid”, he says in verse 17. “I am the First and the Last, and the living one”. We looked in detail at these titles last week, so I don’t want to spend time on that again tonight.

But again, the authority of God brings deep reassurance and comfort and that is strengthened in verse 18 where Jesus reassures us that he can even do the impossible: “I was dead: and behold I am alive for ever and ever”. The impossible has become possible with God, so is there anything he cannot achieve in our lives,  in this church, in this community?

And the Good News of the Gospel is this: that death has no more dominion over us because, as Jesus says through John in verse 18: “I hold the keys of death and Hades”. This is a power and authority that traditionally had only been held by God himself but this is now a role that Jesus, as part of the Trinitarian God can claim for himself. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:55: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

This is good news indeed! And it is news that is worth sharing with everyone we meet because people need to know it! And so John is compelled to write it down and share this wonderful vision, verse 19: “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.” And perhaps that is a metaphorical command to each one of us because in our own ways, we too have seen a vision of Christ and it is our responsibility to share that vision with others.

So, like last week, we have studied just a few verses but been introduced to some incredible truths:

That we have dual citizenship: heaven and earth and that God wishes to communicate with us and it is possible for us to perceive the things of the spirit through the Spirit.

That God is here in our midst and he walks amongst us as the Promised Messiah, the Judge of the nations, with all authority and might and power and that he holds the whole world in his hands.

That God proclaims his word to us and that word is a double-edged sword setting us free or meting out judgement on us.

That Jesus stands within the historic tradition of the Jewish prophets and that our only appropriate response is to fall before him in fear and trembling.

But Jesus meets us with his touch in compassion and mercy and takes away our fears; for this life and the next.

And finally, that we have good news to share with others, that we are to be like lights to the world proclaiming the good news of salvation and the death of death in the death of Christ.

We receive the comfort and we rise to the challenge…

A sermon on John 1:43-51

This morning, we continue our series of sermons thinking about who Jesus Christ and what it means to be a follower of Christ. Two weeks ago, we thought about the humanity of Christ and his childhood. Last week, we thought about the divinity of Christ and how we called into a life of authentic worship. Today, we are looking at this passage from John 1:43-51 and thinking about what it means to follow Jesus.

I suppose, in a sense, every sermon is about what it means to follow Jesus but there are four aspects I want to draw on this morning out of the dialogue and interactions in this story that John records for us.

And the scene is set for us as Jesus decides to head for Galilee and that’s when the encounter with Philip begins.

The first point we notice is actually very easy to miss. Right at the start of the story, John says: “Jesus found Philip”. If you go to any book shop and look in the spirituality section, you will find autobiographies of people who have devoted themselves to the spiritual life through the years. And very often, they write about how they spent many years seeking out a spiritual leader to follow. They may have tried out the ideas of gurus, or philosophers, they may have sat at the feet of great preachers and wise teachers trying to decide who to follow.

But that is not the same for us as Christians: that is not even an option because, as John says, “Jesus found Philip”. Philip didn’t find Christ. Christ found Philip. The truth at the heart of the Christian story is not that you and I have found Christ but Christ has found us.

We did not decide for God.

God decided for us.

And the narrative that runs throughout the Bible is of a God who constantly seeks out his people. And that’s the case right from the beginning of Scripture. If you remember in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, realised they were naked and were embarrassed, so they hid. And, in verse 8, God is walking in the garden and looking for Adam and Eve and then, in verse 9: “But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” Right from the beginning of time, God has been seeking us out and finding us. So let us never think that we chose God: he has chosen us! As Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:4: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world…”

And this is important because the knowledge that God has sought us out rather than vice versa is crucial in keeping us humble before God. Even our own faith is not our own decision!

And once Jesus finds Philip, he issues a single command: “Follow me”. Put Jesus as number one in our lives: that is what is demanded of us as Christians. Philip is compelled to follow Jesus – and leaves all else behind: his work, his family, his possessions, his ambitions. It all has to go when we follow Christ.

I once heard a great youth worker teaching us about discipleship and he said this: If a young person says, “Can I be a Christian and still have a boyfriend?” the answer is No. “Can I be a Christian and still enjoy a drink?” the answer is No. “Can I be a Christian and still go clubbing?” the answer is No. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with boyfriends or alcohol or clubbing: there isn’t anything wrong with these. But there is something inherently wrong with a question that’s phrased: “Can I be a Christian and still dot dot dot?” A question that is phrased like that suggests that the enquirer wants to follow Jesus but still keep something back, some part of their life, for themselves, and that is the problem…

Jesus, when he calls us to follow him does not give us any Get-Out clauses: as someone once said “He is Lord of all, or not at all”. Following Jesus is a radical commitment that demands every aspect of our being. Of course we get it wrong from time to time and fall short of the ideal but the intention of radical discipleship should always be before us.

Second, we notice what Philip did when he set out to follow Jesus. Did he go on an Alpha Course? No. Did he join a church? No. Did he get baptised? No. The first thing he did, according to John, was find his brother Nathanael and tell him about Jesus! The first rule of being a disciple of Jesus is very simple: tell other people about Jesus!

And what is so lovely, I think, is that Philip didn’t have any great learning and yet he was really effective in being an evangelist for Jesus. I’ve just said how God finds us, not the other way round. But look what Philip says to Nathanael: “We have found him about whom Moses in the law wrote…” Well, Philip’s theology isn’t very good: Jesus found him, he didn’t find Jesus! But, nevertheless, he is effective in bringing Nathanael to Jesus.

So often, we think we can’t tell other people about Jesus because we don’t know enough or we don’t know our Bibles well enough…but none of that matters. We don’t need to be theologians to be effective. We just need to be passionate for Jesus, and he will do the rest!

So firstly, to be a follower of Jesus means to be found by him.

Secondly, to be a follower of Jesus means to tell others about him.

Thirdly, to be a follower of Jesus means keeping on going despite the knocks. Nathanael’s response to Philip is not particularly encouraging, is it? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip had come running over to Nathanael, passionate about sharing this good news about Jesus, only to be met with a really cynical response.

Sometimes, when we tell people about Jesus, we are met with cynicism or rudeness or apathy and it can be really discouraging and it can knock our self-confidence. But when it happened to Philip, he didn’t get into some theological debate about the merits of Nazareth as a geographical region or its place within the salvation history of Israel or anything like that…He just said to Nathanael, “Come and see!” And, when it comes to evangelism, that’s all we need to keep saying: “Come and see!” We don’t need to get involved in heavy theological debates. “Don’t take my word for it. Come and see!” and let God do the rest.

Now, there is a real challenge to us here as a church because there is a rhetorical question for us to answer: if people do “Come and see”, what will they find? Will people receive a warm welcome here? Will they get a sense of God changing lives? Will they have an experience of worship that gives them access to God? Will they go away with a sense of excitement that something is happening here? Is Jesus at the centre of St. Mary’s? If they come and see, will they meet with God? All good questions for us to ponder as our Mission Action Plan unfolds…

Being a disciple means being found by God.

Being a disciple means telling others about him.

Being a disciple means not losing confidence when the message is not always welcomed.

Fourthly and finally: Being a disciple means receiving peace and blessing from God.

Jesus’ response to Nathanael is very interesting indeed. Let’s look at this part of the passage: “When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, “Where did you come to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’” Now, there’s two things to be said here:

First, is to do with the word ‘see’. Philip had said to Nathanael, “Come and see!” And the word he used for ‘see’ had to do with use of the eyes: we look and we see something. But twice the word ‘see’ is used with regard to Jesus in this passage: “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him…” and “I saw you under the fig tree…” And on both those occasions, there is a different word for ‘to see’ used than the one Philip used.

On both occasions, the word used has nothing to do with physical sight through the eyes but speaks of perception instead. Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him

that is to say, he saw into Nathanael’s heart as he approached and recognised him for who he truly was.

And secondly, we read Jesus’ words that, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you” which suggests that Jesus knew of Nathanael before this encounter - not in a physical sense of having seen him before - but in a more spiritual sense of having had his hand on Nathanael’s life before that encounter from all eternity.

Yes, Jesus Christ had found Nathanael, just as he had found Philip even though both Philip and Nathanael thought they had found Jesus. And there is a real sense of peace that we can derive from the knowledge that God has had his hand on us even from before we became aware of him.

But secondly, it is interesting that Jesus says: “I saw you under the fig tree”. That is a phrase that is used three other times in the Bible: 1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10. For example from 1 Kings – “During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel…lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig-tree”. And each time that phrase is used, sitting under the fig-tree is a symbol of living in the peace and blessing, which an obedient relationship with God provides.

And so, in this passage from John, Jesus is perceiving in Nathanael the obedience of a well lived Jewish life. He says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” meaning that Nathanael has known the peace and blessing of God on his life. But, in a relationship with Jesus, there is even more for Nathanael to receive: far more than obedience to the Jewish law could ever give him. Jesus says to him: “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” I think Jesus is commending him for having been an obedient Jew but he is calling Nathanael into a deeper place of peace and blessing through a relationship with him.

And, as Christians, we know that peace and blessing can only derive from our relationship with Jesus. The more we allow Jesus to be the centre of our lives, the more we know peace in our hearts.

So this is a seemingly very simple passage; a lovely story about the calling of Philip and Nathanael. But it is full to the brim with deep teaching on the nature of discipleship…

We did not choose God – he chose us from all eternity.

We are called by him primarily to tell others about the good news of Jesus.

We are not to be discouraged by the response we may get from others but trust that an encounter with God will be life-changing for them too.

We are called into a life of peace and blessing with God: Jesus sees us, he knows everything about us and perceives our deepest needs and, if we follow him, as he says to Nathanael “[we] will see heaven opened…”

Jesus Christ is, indeed, a Saviour to be followed and it is a lifetime’s work for us to live out these two simple instructions: “Follow me!” “Come and see!”

Today, we follow.

Today, we come – and we will see.

A sermon on Matthew 2:1-12

In John 4:23, we read these words of Christ: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him”.

On 16 December, David Cameron caused something of a stir by suggesting that the UK is a Christian country and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so! He then went on to make some claims for Christianity in relation to the State that I don’t want to get sidetracked into commenting on from a political perspective but I can say, from a theological perspective, that his comments seemed at best naïve and at worst ignorant.

But the positive upshot was that, the week before Christmas, there was plenty of opportunity for bishops and theologians to be interviewed by the media to talk about the primary purpose of the church. Providing the moral compass for the nation? That’s not our primary purpose. Undertaking works of charity and social justice? That’s not our primary purpose. Preaching the Gospel and leading people to salvation? That’s not our primary purpose. Yes, the church seeks to promote morality. Yes, the church seeks to engage with social justice issues. Yes, the church engages in mission but none of these are our primary purpose…

The primary purpose of the church is revealed clearly in John 4:23: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him”.

Worship.

That is what the church is all about.

Worship.

We are here on this earth, primarily, to worship God our Creator and that verse from John reminds us that the Father seeks those who worship him.

So what is worship? How do we define it? We can talk about singing hymns. We can talk about praying. We can talk about receiving the bread and wine. We can talk about reading the Bible. But none of these things, in and of themselves, are worship: these are things that we may do when we worship…Certainly, the rituals we use in church can be done worshipfully but we must never define our worship by the rituals because then we lose the heart of what worship is about and become more attached to the rituals than we do to the act of worship itself.

There is a crucial difference that we must never lose sight of between expressions of worship: which are the rituals and the attitude of worship: which is worship itself. We must be careful never to confuse the expression of worship with the attitude of worship.

And it’s the attitude of worship I want to think about this morning through our story in Matthew 2:1-12 because this story comes close to defining worship for us as adoration of God from our spirit. Our spirit, our soul is the seat of our personality: our mind, emotions and will and worship is the bringing of our mind, emotions and will into the presence of God and using them to adore him and glorify him.

And there’s three points I want to make about worship from this passage.

1. Worship is a journey

The wise men went on a journey. We don’t know how far that journey was but historically we believe that it was a considerable distance. We don’t know the details of the journey: from the East to Bethlehem is all we know - but we can say that, in a metaphorical sense, they journeyed from knowledge to worship.

These men studied the stars; they had a wealth of knowledge - enough even to convince them of the birth of the Messiah in a distant land. And so they journeyed, starting out with knowledge. But the journey ended with worship. In verse 11, we read: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.” These wise men journeyed fro knowledge to worship.

We might think that the journey from the head to the heart is short indeed: eighteen inches or less. But actually, for many people, the journey from head to heart can take a lifetime. Of course, when we worship God, we do not leave knowledge behind our knowledge; our rationality informs our worship. But worship, by definition, is more than knowledge. It is adoration of God, stemming from body, mind and will.

Firstly then, worship is a journey: from the head to the heart.

2. Worship is a costly business

The wise men had been on a long journey - we don’t know how long but it was long…

Often, we think that the wise men visited Jesus in the stable where he was born our crib scenes portray that image. But that’s not the case: The shepherds saw Jesus in the manger but in verse 11 of this passage, the wise men met with Jesus in the ‘oikian’, the house. Jesus was at home, a toddler with his mother and father. Perhaps the journey had taken many months, maybe even years and so, for the wise men, worship was a costly business in terms of time, energy and self-sacrifice.

But, of course, it was costly because they brought gifts with them: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Worship is a costly business. There is personal sacrifice involved if we are to worship in spirit and in truth. In the Old Testament, David said: “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.”

And I think the cost of worship is that, like the wise men, we bring something with us to leave with Jesus. Perhaps we bring our love. Perhaps we bring our anxieties or fears for the future. Perhaps we bring with us our hurt and pain or our disappointments. But if we want to be real in worship rather than just go through the motions, we must be sure of what we bring to Jesus today and what we want to leave with him. Because we are not doing God a favour when we worship him worship is more than that…

And it is not as if anything we do bring to worship is worthy of God: not even the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh came even close to being worthy gifts for the Lord Jesus. Our worship doesn’t add anything to God but through our worship we are transformed in the presence of God.

Worship is a journey – from the head to the heart.

Worship is costly – as we leave our gifts with God.

And thirdly, and finally, worship has a specific focus

3. The focus of worship

Again, verse 11: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.” They paid homage to Jesus Christ. That is the focus of worship: the only focus…

It is too easy to lose sight of this. We can too easily fall into making our theological doctrines the centre of our worship. We can too easily fall into making our rituals the centre of our worship. But, for the wise men, the worship of Jesus was more than doctrine, it was more than ritual, it was the adoration of the true and living God.

And so it must be for us, as we meet here today. Worship, for us, must be solely focussed on Jesus Christ. He is the God to be adored.

And as we bring our gifts to him this morning, as we put our doctrines and rituals into proper perspective and bring our lives before him, so we will be transformed into his likeness and our lives will glorify God.

We are born to worship. It is where we find our true identity, our sense of purpose. And now, as we prepare to receive the bread and the wine, we commit ourselves to the worship of God in spirit and in truth.

Amen.

Sermon on Revelation 1:1-8

We are starting our Word and Worship services by studying the Book of Revelation. The first three chapters we will look at between now and mid-March and then probably take a break for a few weeks, moving onto another biblical book, and then come back to it. And so, over the next year or so, we should work through Revelation completely.

But why spend so much time on the Book of Revelation? There’s a few reasons. Firstly, it seems to be the one book of the Bible that is least understood and, to be frank, causes the most amount of fear. Many Christians are frightened of it, or in awe at it and so decide to ignore it completely. And that’s a shame because it is a really rich book with some meaty teaching and deep encouragements for us. Winston Churchill once described the Soviet Union as: “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Some of us feel like that about the Book of Revelation! You may find it a tough book – but it’s worth persevering with!

Second, there is a lot of really bad teaching about Revelation out there. Now, I don’t claim to have a particularly deep understanding or to be a better biblical theologian than others but I want to redress the balance in our minds and to show that there are at least a number of credible interpretations that are far stronger than some of the sensationalist readings of this book.

Thirdly, it is called the Book of Revelation: it is about truths to be revealed! So it is a real irony if the one book in the Bible called Revelation remains the one book that stays hidden from us! God wants to reveal truths to us through this book so we ought to grapple with it. And that’s what we will be doing, going through it pretty much verse by verse and seeing what God has to say to us through the Book of Revelation.

OK, before we start, a little bit of historical background…

Authorship

We can’t be absolutely sure who wrote this book but most people believe it to be the disciple John. The same John who was with Jesus throughout his ministry. The same John who wrote the Gospel. The same John who wrote the letters, 1, 2 & 3 John. And John was the only disciple not to be martyred for the faith. He became the Bishop of Ephesus and lived into old age and, if this is the John who wrote the book, he would have received the prophecy when he was about 80 years old. But remember – Abraham was an old man when he was called by God and in Acts 7:30, we are told that Moses was 80 years old when he met with God in the burning bush on Mount Sinai. Perhaps it takes a lifetime of developing wisdom to hear God clearest…

So the author is probably John the apostle. But what was the cultural context into which he was writing?

Cultural and Political Context

John wrote this prophecy down, probably, about AD96, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian. The Roman Empire was really strong at this point - it had reached Germany and Great Britain- and Titus Flavius Domitian was a particularly cruel and strong Emperor. He demanded the worship of all people within the Roman Empire taking the title “Lord and God” and, if you refused to worship him, the consequences were dire.

Now, that is not to say that the Christians were suffering terrible persecution: opinion is divided on this. For many years, we have assumed that the Christians were persecuted but more recent scholars are beginning to question that assumption. The truth is that there is silence in history on this issue: he may have persecuted them or he may not but we cannot assume that there was a bloodbath of Christian martyrs being slain for holding fast to the Gospel under Domitian. It may make for a good story – but we can’t prove it.

In fact, historians of the day write about persecutions under Nero so it would be odd for the same thing not to be recorded if it did happen under Domitian. In fact, it wasn’t until the 3^rd century – under Emperor Diocletian that persecution of Christians reached its height. What we do know is that 200 years after Domitian, the church historian Eusebius mentioned martyrdom under Domitian but there is no evidence that Christians actually died for the faith. And this is an important point because there is a lot of mention of martyrdom in Revelation and it would seem that this refers to a way of living rather than facing death for Christ.

But regardless of whether there was severe persecution of Christians to the point of death, these were very difficult days to stand up for what you believed and refuse to worship the Emperor. And Christians suffered greatly as a result.

The purpose of the book

So John writes down the prophecy that is given to him and sends it to his Christian brothers and sisters. We know from verse 9 that John was on the island of Patmos “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus”. This suggests that he had been sent into exile because of his ministry; whether permanently or temporarily, we don’t know. And in verse 4, we are told that he writes his letter “to the seven churches in Asia”. That refers to Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, and the seven churches are those over which he would have had pastoral oversight.

So John is on Patmos and he receives this vision and sends it to his flock to give them encouragement during the trials they are facing. So for that reason alone, if nothing else, we shouldn’t be scared of the Book of Revelation because its original intent was to encourage and bless: not to instil fear.

Introduction to the Book

OK, enough about the background for now: we’ll return to it again in more detail as the weeks go by. Let’s turn to the Book of Revelation itself.

Verse 1 is really important for us to understand all that is to follow. “The revelation of Jesus Christ” and the word ‘of’ is really crucial. It could mean the revelation ‘about’ Jesus Christ or it could mean the revelation ‘which Jesus Christ gave to John’. The ‘of’ is ambiguous. But I think the rest of the verse helps us understand that better: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him [meaning Jesus] to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John”. There’s a hierarchy of revelation here. It is God’s revelation. God gives it to Jesus. Jesus gives it to an angel. The angel gives it to John. John gives it to the Christians.

And we mustn’t overlook the importance of the phrase “what must soon take place” because so many people take the book of Revelation as speaking about things that will happen only at the Second Coming but John is clear that, for these Christians in AD96, these events would soon take place. Now, there is a lot of stuff in Revelation about the final days before the Second Coming but we must avoid what is called a ‘futurist reading’ and realise that the teaching in this book is relevant to us in the Here and Now, not just sometime in the future…

This is a book that contains blessings for today as John points out in verse 3: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy [that is, the messenger who takes it to the churches in Asia Minor], and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it [that is, the first Christians who heard it – and you and me!]”

So we come to verse 4 and 5, the greeting from John to the churches: “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of earth.” This is a really important verse because we need to remember that it would be many years yet before the church was able to vocalise a belief in a Trinitarian God. There was no clear statement of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But what we find in these two verses are a very early allusion to the God who is trinity…

First, grace and peace come from him who is and who was and who is to come”. This is a reference to God the Father and draws our mind back to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 3:14. There, Moses is speaking with God and says, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they shall ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God says to Moses, “I am who I am”. This is the name that God gives for himself – “I am who I am” - but there are no tenses in this so we could render it, “I was who I was” or “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be”. All three are correct.

So when John defines God as  “him who is and who was and who is to come”, he is drawing our minds back to God’s self-definition and confirming to the first hearers that the God of Revelation is the same God who has been worshipped for hundreds of years.

The next description of the Trinity seems a bit more difficult, but isn’t really: “…and from the seven spirits who are before his throne”. Why is the Holy Spirit referred to in this way? Well, we will keep coming up against the number Seven throughout the Book of Revelation: in fact, there are more than 50 references to the number Seven and it is the biblical number of completeness, totality, wholeness. So as John writes to the seven churches, which we will see represent the whole church throughout time, it is natural for him to refer to the Holy Spirit as the seven spirits to indicate the truth that the Holy Spirit dwells in each and every church in equal measure. There is only one Holy Spirit but he is equal and wholly present in every church throughout time hence he is referred to here as the seven spirits: a symbol of completeness and fullness

And the fact that the Holy Spirit is described as the seven spirits, or the sevenfold Spirit, is also an indication that we are talking about the Holy Spirit of God as prophesied in Isaiah 11. In that chapter, verse 1, there is a prophecy of the coming of Christ: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a brach shall grow out of his roots.” And, in verse 2 of Isaiah 11, there is a reference to the Spirit of God with a sevenfold activity with regard to the coming Messiah:

“The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” (remember the story of the baptism of Jesus, with the spirit descending like a dove?)

The spirit of wisdom.

The spirit of understanding.

The spirit of counsel.

The spirit of might.

The spirit of knowledge.

The spirit of the fear of the Lord.

A sevenfold Holy Spirit prophesied in Isaiah 11 that matches the seven spirits in John’s Revelation.

And then, finally, we have a description of Jesus Christ himself. First, he is ‘the faithful witness’ and the word John uses here is ‘martyr’ referring, as we said earlier, not to the death of Christ but to the fact that his life bore witness to the love of God. Second, he is the ‘first-born of the dead’, referring to his own resurrection and implicitly referring to the fact that we too will know resurrection when the Lord comes again. Third, he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. I preached a sermon a few weeks ago on Psalm 2 so I don’t want to cover that ground again. But this description of Jesus Christ, the Messiah as the ruler of the kings of the earth seems to be an allusion to Psalm 2 which says, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear…” Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth prophesied in Psalm 2 and John gives him this title in his revelation because these Christians facing troubled times at the hands of Domitian needed to be reminded that the Roman Empire was not the ultimate power.  Domitian may have liked the title, “Lord and God” but Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth and that was a message of comfort they desperately needed to hear…

So, in these two verses, we have an incredible description of God. He is the eternal Father, beyond all time and space who is and who was and is to come. He is the Holy Spirit walking amongst us, dwelling with us in completeness and fullness throughout his whole church. He is the Son, the Messiah long ago prophesied who bears witness to the grace and peace of God, who is our guarantee of resurrection and eternal life, who is ruler of the world, even over the powers of the most scary Emperors!

And when God is described like that to us, when we get a glimpse into the sheer glory and majesty of our God, there is only one response we can make, verses 5 and 6: “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever. Amen!”

And even in this description, John is drawing us back to the heritage that is ours promised throughout the Old Testament. The love of God is the covenant promise of an unbreakable bond between us. In Genesis 8, after the flood, God says to Noah: “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind…” In Hosea 11:3 and 4, God says: “It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms…I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love”. And through the love of God, as John says in verse 5 we are set free, reminding us of the Exodus story when the people of Israel are set free from the yoke of slavery under the Egyptians.

And John goes on…“We are freed from our sins by his blood…” reminding us of the Old Testament sacrifices that were fulfilled in the blood of Christ shed on the cross. And the allusions to the Old Testament heritage don’t end there…We are a kingdom: the chosen people, the true kingdom of Israel. We are all priests: not like the Levite priestly order in the Old Testament, which is reserved for just a few – we are all priests together. This verse draws the Christians back to their heritage. John is not revealing to them something new and frightening. He is saying, ‘This is our heritage. This is where we have come from”.

But more than that, in verse 7, we are drawn to look to the future not just dwell on the heritage of our past: “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.” This prophecy of the future is a bringing together of two crucial Old Testament passages. Daniel 7:13 says, “I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.” Zechariah 12:10 says, “When they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him…and weep bitterly over him.” And if you think John is just pulling random verses together here - he’s not! - because Jesus used exactly the same verses to make exactly the same point in Matthew 24:30, where he says: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory.” And that’s the message of the angels, too, after the Ascension when the disciples were looking up into heaven wondering where Jesus had gone! Acts 1:11: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

And, as if we needed any further reminding of the power and the authority vested in Christ God speaks directly in verse 8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. These, of course, are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. “I am the A to Z”, we might say… And we know the incredible power of the alphabet: all knowledge is contained within 26 tiny letters, all knowledge is communicated through 26 tiny letters. The Alpha and the Omega: all power, wisdom, knowledge and authority is contained in God in the very essence of his being.

One of the churches to which this letter from John would go was Laodicea. And some years earlier, Paul had shown concern for them too as we see in his letter to the Colossians and the sentiment he expressed was similar to John’s here: Colossians 2:1-3: “I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea…I want them to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”.

The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the containment of all wisdom and knowledge…

So there we have the first 8 verses of Revelation 1. To recap:

It is a prophecy given to struggling Christians to give hope and encouragement in the face of their trials.

It is a blessing to those who hear it and obey its teaching.

It comes from the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the same God who has been worshipped from the beginning of biblical times who is present in all the churches through his Holy Spirit.

It is a message of love and freedom and forgiveness, giving us dignity as citizens of the kingdom of God leading us into our destiny as a royal priesthood.

It confirms that God has been active throughout history and it assures us that God is in control of future events too.

It confirms to us that our God is sufficient, almighty and all powerful and in him is contained as wisdom and knowledge, might and authority.

As an Introduction to what is to come, we are left reviewing our past fears of this last book in the Bible and we are bound to say, in the light of what we’ve learnt: How could we possibly be afraid of this magnificent part of Scripture?

A sermon on the childhood of Jesus - Luke 2:39-52

As a church, we are beginning to move out of the Christmas season and into the season of Epiphany. The word ‘Epiphany’ is from the Greek, which means: “the manifestation of God in human form”; the idea that God has come among us in the form of a human being.

The focus of the church’s worship, worldwide, in Epiphany is the visit of the wise men to offer Jesus their gifts but we have a five week period during which we can reflect on the miracle of God amongst us in human form. And to do that, we will be working through a series of sermons on who Jesus is: what does it actually mean for us to have a relationship with God that is made a reality through the Word becoming Flesh and dwelling among us? In the pewsheet, you will see the various themes that we will be working through over the coming few weeks. But today, I want to start at the very beginning and consider the childhood of Jesus.

The Christmas season helps us to remember that Jesus began life as a child. God didn’t appear among us as a fully formed adult and even though the Bible doesn’t teach too much about his childhood, there are some important things we can learn about Jesus through what Luke does have to tell us. So you can follow the passage on the pewsheet insert…

Now Luke is the only Gospel writer to give us any real detail about Jesus’ childhood and we can guess why he wants to say what he does. In Luke 1:1, we see that he is writing to Theophilus who was perhaps a Roman official who had become a Christian, and at the beginning Luke says, “Dear Theophilus, many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us…because I have carefully studied all these matter from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.”

It seems that there were a number of different Gospels in existence by the time that Luke wrote his. Certainly Mark’s Gospel had already been written and possibly Matthew’s too. And we know that there were others too – less credible accounts. We know, for example, about the Gospel of Thomas and in that book, the boy Jesus was described as a boy wonder performing all sorts of miracles. For example, he made birds out of clay and breathed life into them. His clothes miraculously grew longer as he got taller, and so on…These seem to have been fables made up about Jesus and perhaps Luke wants to write the truth about his childhood so that Theophilus isn’t sidetracked into believing these weird and wonderful stories.

And so, in these early chapters Luke tells us nine stories surrounding Jesus’ infancy and childhood: The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the story of Mary’s pregnancy, the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth, the story of Zechariah in the Temple, the Angels and the Shepherds, the shepherds visiting Jesus, Simeon in the Temple, Anna in the Temple - and the ninth story is this one about Jesus in the Temple at the age of 12. So let’s look at this together and see what we can learn from it…

The scene is set in Jerusalem, which was so important for Jesus. He was born only five miles from there. He was circumcised there and, we are told, made an annual visit for the Passover. Jesus cried over Jerusalem as an adult and he would eventually die there. So it is appropriate that this story centres on the city that was so integral to his future ministry. Jesus was there for the Passover, a seven day festival, perhaps the greatest of all Jewish festivals, and we are told that he was twelve years old.

His age in this story is important because it means he was no longer a child. Jesus had had his bar mitzvah: a puberty ritual that marks the passing of infancy and the approach to adulthood. In the previous stories, Jesus is referred to by the word ‘paidion’, which means ‘baby’ or ‘young child’. But in verse 43, he is called ‘pais’, meaning ‘older boy’. Jesus is growing to maturity from an infant to a young man, with all that that entails…

There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child and that’s certainly what we see in this story. In verse 44, we are told that Mary and Joseph and Jesus had travelled to Jerusalem with a group of friends and relatives and it must have been a large group for them not to realise that Jesus had gone missing. So we get a lovely insight into the childhood of Jesus; that it wasn’t a lonely childhood but growing up in a tight-knit community surrounded by his aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters. Presumably, Jesus had a lot of fun as a child!

And then we come to a key point, in verses 45-46: “[Mary and Joseph] did not find him, so they went back to Jerusalem looking for him. On the third day, they found him in the Temple…” 

Not the first or second day. Not the fourth day. But on the third day, they found him…

Here we have a prophecy about the death and resurrection of Jesus where Jesus spent three days in the tomb before being raised, as he said metaphorically, to rebuild the Temple.

Right from the beginning of his Gospel account, Luke is preparing us for the end.

“On the third day, they found him in the Temple…”

I remember when Rebekah was about 6 years old. We were living in the East End of London at the time and we were having a pub lunch and Rebekah needed the toilet so we told her where it was and off she went. After about 10 minutes, she hadn’t come back so we went to the toilets to get her: but she wasn’t there…

Now, if you have ever misplaced your own child you will know the sheer panic that sets in…We went back to the bar and shouted, “Our daughter is missing. Can you help find her, please?” The bar emptied out of about 30 men, all scouring the streets round the pub, heading out to the local park, stopping cars as they drove by. 10 minutes later, still nothing…I thought my world was collapsing around me.

Then a very sheepish Rebekah was led back to us, hand in hand with a woman who had found her in another set of toilets in the pub we didn’t know were there. Rebekah had been having 20 minutes of fun playing with the hand driers!

So what did I do? First, give her a hug of relief and say how much I loved her. Second, tell her off! “I’m so glad you’re safe! But where have you been? You must never wander off like that again! But I’m so glad you’re safe!” That mixture of relief and anger – perhaps you’ve had a similar experience yourself?

And that’s how Mary and Joseph were, in verse 48: “My son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried trying to find you…”

And Jesus’ reply is really important, not least because it is the first time we hear his words in Luke’s Gospel. And what does he say? “Why did you have to look for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?”

And here – in this first recorded utterance of the Son of God: the Word made flesh - here is the pinnacle of the story…“Why did you have to look for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?”

I ‘must be’ in my Father’s house. This Greek word ‘dei’, meaning ‘must be’ is a really important word for Luke when Jesus uses it and each time it refers to his sense of compulsion about his ministry. For example:

Luke 2:49 – “I must be in my Father’s house”.

Luke 4:43 – “I must preach the Good News”.

Luke 9:22 – “The Son of Man must suffer much and be put to death”…and so on.

Jesus had a sense of compulsion about his ministry: he knew what he had to do and Luke tells us here that this self-awareness began to develop at a very early age. Jesus, out of a growing awareness of the call on his life says, “I must be in my Father’s house”.

Is it any wonder, then, that in verse 50 we read that Mary and Joseph “did not understand his answer”? How could they understand? How could they realise what their son would need to do for God? How could they grasp the depth of suffering that awaited him just a few years down the line?

But, as Luke writes in verse 51: “His mother treasured all these things in her heart”. She spent the next 18 years before Jesus’ public ministry began pondering the meaning of all these things; from the angel Gabriel visiting Zechariah through to this episode at the Temple in Jerusalem…

We aren’t told any more details about the childhood of Jesus but what we have here is immense. Here is the Word made Flesh, God in our midst, growing into maturity, from infancy into childhood just as we did, facing all the same issues we did. Here is the Word made Flesh, God in our midst, growing up in the context of a family just as we did, with all the joys and frustrations that brings. Here is the Word made Flesh, God in our midst, growing into a deeper awareness of God’s call on his life and his need to be obedient to that call.

A threefold maturing is outlined here:

Maturing within himself.

Maturing within the community.

Maturing in his relationship with God.

Now, I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions really but I do recognise the need for personal growth - perhaps we all do - and this story of the childhood of Christ can help motivate us in that way…

There is a call on each one of us to mature within ourselves: develop spiritual disciplines, grow in love and compassion for others, develop a greater sense of forgiveness and love for ourselves.

There is a call on each one of us to mature within the community: to ask ourselves afresh what we can do this year to serve within the church, the Body of Christ so that we can encourage and strengthen one another in faith and love.

There is a call on each one of us to mature in our relationship with God: to deepen our prayer life, to deepen our desire to study the Bible, to deepen our love for him.

The childhood stories of Jesus are stories of maturing: maturing with regard to self, maturing with regard to the community, maturing with regard to God.

In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul says this: “All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord...; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.” I hope that it is the prayer and determination of each one of us, as we embark upon 2012, to do what we can to be transformed ever closer into the likeness of Christ so that God will be glorified in us and through us.

On this New Year’s Day, we take the opportunity to recommit ourselves to God for the coming year and for the rest of our lives. Amen.

Sermon on John 1:1-14

This passage from John’s Gospel is so well known. We hear it every Christmas and it becomes so familiar that the depth of it is often lost on us. This morning, I just want to pick up on one verse in the passage: verse 11: “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him”. What does this mean? And what does it have to do with Christmas?

We often think of the birth of Jesus at Nazareth as being the first time the world encountered the Son of God. But that is not the case. The history of the world is the history of our encounter with the Son of God: John reminds us in this reading that, “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

The whole world – and everything in it – whether there’s a Higgs-Boson Principle or not, is an encounter with the creative energy of God through his Son, the Word. Long before the Nativity at Bethlehem, the Word was already active amongst us. The Word of God is the source of all life and the sustainer of all life. But at that first Christmas, the Word became flesh - what an incredible miracle: the Word became Flesh. God walked among us, full of grace and truth.

But there is a sadness in this too because, as John reminds us: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

The Son of God became visible to us and walked among us at Bethlehem but the great tragedy of history is that he was not accepted or recognised. “His own people did not accept him”.

Now this is a really important verse and I want to focus on one aspect this morning: the phrase, “His own…” It’s used twice in this verse: “He came to what was his own…” and then “His own people did not accept him”. There’s a distinction here that is not easy to pick out in the English translation. But in the original Greek, there is a crucial difference in the use of the phrase “His own”.

“He came to what was his own…” The Greek here is gender neutral and plural, which means John is referring to things, not people. “He came to what was his own…” What John is saying is that this world and everything in it belongs to Jesus. It is his own: the world is his possession. He is Lord and King and sovereign over all creation.

But the second time that phrase is used in this verse: “His own people did not accept him” - this time it is in the masculine gender, which suggests John is now talking about people, not things. His own people, the Jewish race, did not accept him. From the very beginning with King Herod trying to kill him, through his period as a refugee in Egypt, through his ministry with opposition from Pharisees and Sadducees, through to his crucifixion on Good Friday - “His own people did not accept him”.

The Christmas story, sadly, is the story of the unwelcome Christ “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

This morning, we come to St. Mary’s to celebrate the Christmas story and the question before us is whether Christ is made welcome here or not; whether we will accept him and welcome him into our lives. It takes a conscience decision to welcome Christ.

That is especially the case for those of us who come regularly to church because we can often get so caught up in our church life that we forget to welcome Christ. Prayer meetings, fabric meetings, tree festivals, sermon preparation, choir practices, school assembly preparation, Deanery Synods, PCCs, youth work, children’s work, pastoral care: this is a busy church. But in our busyness, we must not forget to welcome Christ and have him as the centre of all our activity.

In the Book of Revelation, 3:20, the Risen Christ says: “Behold! I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they will eat with me.” It’s one of those verses that has often been used in evangelical settings to lead people to faith in Christ. But what is most embarrassing is that the Risen Christ speaks these words to the church of Laodicea, to people who are already Christians…but Christians who, in all their busyness have left Christ standing outside the door of their lives.

John says, “His own people did not accept him”. Too often, he is rejected as Lord. Too often, he is rejected as head of the church. This Christmas time, for those of us who profess to be Christians, we are urged to look into our own hearts and attend to our own motivations and priorities and ask ourselves afresh, “Have I truly welcomed Christ into my life?”

Welcoming Christ into the world, into the church, into our lives is what Christmas is all about. Welcoming Christ is actually at the heart of the Christmas story.

There are so many myths surrounding the Christmas story that we often miss what the Bible really says and we don’t look carefully enough at the story and so are in danger of missing the point. The obvious example is the astrologers from the East who are turned into wise men and then turned into 3 wise men and then turned into 3 Kings. But there are other fables too that detract us from the true Christmas story…

How many of us remember the innkeeper in the story at the inn where Mary and Joseph are turned away?

Well, of course, when we read the Gospel accounts of Christmas, there is no innkeeper mentioned and Mary and Joseph are not turned away…

We are told that there is no room at the inn but the word used here for inn is ‘kataluma’ which means ‘guesthouse’. And guesthouses in Palestine in Jesus’ day were on two open floors; the upper floor being bedrooms and the lower floor for cattle and horses. In truth, Palestinian culture would not have allowed the turning away of a guest. Hospitality was taken very seriously. Joseph was back in his home town. Mary had connections there, through her cousin Elizabeth whose husband Zechariah was an important priest in Jerusalem. Perhaps there was no room in the kataluma, the upstairs of the guesthouse, but it is clear that Joseph and Mary were welcomed in even if they had to be in the downstairs part.

Christ was welcomed in at his birth; born into a loving, yet humble home.

And then the shepherds came from the fields; men of poverty with humble jobs and a lowly status in society and they too welcomed Christ.

Ironically, and somewhat embarrassingly, it seems that the humble and lowly houseowner welcomed Christ, the humble and lowly shepherds welcomed Christ but the holy and religious people of God did not welcome him.

What a challenge to our comfort and complacency this story is!

This is an upside-down story – it does not work how we think it should.

Surely the priests and the religious people should be there to welcome Christ - but they are the ones who have missed him. It is the lowly, the poor and the marginalised who recognise the Messiah for who he truly is.

And that becomes the hallmark for the rest of his ministry. Jesus says:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God”.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”.

It seems to me that the message of Christmas does not revolve around the need to be religious or pious in any way. God is not found in our religiosity. God meets us in our humility and poverty of spirit.

So this Christmas is an opportunity for each one of us to welcome Christ. We don’t need to be religious to do that. We don’t need to have a history of church attendance to do that. We don’t need a dog collar to do that or to hold some official position in the church. The complete opposite in fact! Welcoming Christ is something we do out of our poverty of spirit, where we say, “Lord, I don’t have much to give you…I’m not very righteous, in fact I get so much wrong in my life…Lord, I don’t have much to offer you at all but what I have, you can have…” That is the type of welcome that Jesus wants: the welcome of the lowly guesthouse, the welcome of the poor shepherds.

It seems almost too twee, almost too obvious to quote from Christina Rosetti’s poem called, ‘What can I give him?’ But we all know the words:

“What can I give him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise man, I would do my part

Yet what I can I give him – give my heart”

That’s all he wants…

John writes, “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him”. Let’s not be numbered amongst those people this morning. Let’s welcome Christ – in the only way we know how: by giving him our hearts this Christmas time.

Amen.

A sermon on Luke 2:1-12

In a few minutes time, before we take Communion, we will say together the Lord’s Prayer, which ends with the words: ‘The kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen’. This is the great declaration that unites us as Christians, that we live under the authority of God the sovereignty of Christ in the world.

And how was that power and that glory first revealed? According to Luke, the proof is this: “You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.” Glory and authority and power revealed through vulnerability, fragility and humility. A strange way to show power: that’s not the way of the world, is it? And Luke knows that – and wants to teach us something very profound through his version of the Christmas story as he compares the power systems of the world with the power system of the Kingdom of God.

When Luke begins his account of the birth of Jesus, he starts by telling us of the census which the Roman Emperor had ordered. Verse 1: “At that time the Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire”. Filling out a Census form is generally not a popular activity. We heard this week about the 400 people being prosecuted in the UK for refusing to fill out the 2011 Census Form. Brian Collier, from Coventry, had to pay a £150 fine this week and said, “I found it really intrusive and don’t know why I had to answer questions like that”. Well, I’m sure Brian Collier and the other 400 facing prosecution this year can have real sympathy with Mary and Joseph and the rest of Israel as they went through the hassle of Census activity in Palestine 200 years ago! But in comparison to our 2011 form, the Roman Census was a real hassle: you had to uproot and go on a long arduous journey back to the place of your birth: it would have cost time and money. And what did you get at the end of it? A Tax Return from the Roman Inland Revenue!

People did not like the Census: there were often riots and, occasionally, people were killed. People did not like the Census because the Census made one fact absolutely clear…The Romans were in control.

And that control was most evident in the way the Emperor was understood: the Emperor was known by the title ‘Lord’ and the Emperor was considered to be the Saviour of his people, saving them from the power of their enemies. So the Census was actually a profound symbol of political authority: the politicians were in charge, the Emperor Augustus, Lord and Saviour, was in control and if the politicians said ‘Jump’, everyone had to jump…

The story of the birth of Jesus is set in the context of oppressive and overwhelming political power; a power system so strong  that the people of Israel felt completely disempowered.

Perhaps we might have reason to sympathise with that tonight and as we look back at world events in 2011, we see the danger of tyranny and political oppression. And just as the Nativity story is set in Bethlehem, so another year has gone by with Palestinian and Israeli struggle. Just as the Nativity story is set in the Middle East, so we have witnessed the unrest and agony of the Arab Spring. Just as this Nativity story mentions the oppressive regime of Quirinius in Syria so, even in the last 48 hours, we continue to read of bloodshed and oppressive dictatorship in that country. In Bethlehem, in Syria, in the Middle East tonight, the political pain of oppressive political power is just as real tonight as it was for Mary and Joseph.

And for many of us too, the politics of power have impacted us through 2011. All of us, to one degree or another have been impacted by the political turmoil of the last twelve months. When we reflect back to where we were at last Christmas Eve, we might feel considerably poorer now. Perhaps we have less job security, or worse. For all of us, there is a greater sense of personal economic anxiety. And in the face of all the political power-play and decision-making in London and Brussels and around the world, we might feel utterly disempowered and disenchanted.

That is the context in which we live today.

That is the context into which Christ was born.

So, in the first part of our reading, Luke emphasises the strength of political power. He mentions Emperor Augustus – Lord and Saviour, the Roman Empire, Quirinius, the governor of Syria. We are left in no doubt as to where the earthly power lies.

But then the scene changes, in verse 8: “There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields.” We move from the ultimate power of the Emperor Augustus to the ultimate powerlessness of the poor and humble shepherds in the field. And God is beginning to signal something new here about the true values of the world that cannot possibly be embodied in any political system, either in the 1^st-century or in the 21^st-century.

There are three pointers that this Christmas story gives us about Kingdom values.

1. God chose the shepherds to be his witnesses

Shepherds lived on the margins. They were generally distrusted and despised; so much so that they weren’t even allowed to be witnesses in the courts of law. How strange, then, that God should choose shepherds to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Messiah! The Emperor is by-passed. The Roman politicians are by-passed. Quirinius, governor of Syria is by-passed. But God chooses the shepherds!

These were the ordinary folk in society: blue collar workers who, to be honest, were largely ignored as they went about their everyday work. But God did not disregard them: God regarded them. God chose them, the ordinary folk, to be witnesses to his glory.

And so it is the way of God to reveal himself to those who feel disempowered and disregarded; to reveal himself to those people who might believe they have the least to give. And that is why Christmas is such Good News for all of us who feel disempowered and disregarded, for all of us who carry burdens and fears and anxieties and hurts from the past. Because it is to such as us that God reveals his glory. Later in his ministry, Jesus said: “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”. That ministry of bringing healing and salvation to the weary began this Christmas night, when the glory of the Lord shone over the shepherds with the visitation of Good News from the angels.

2. God revealed himself in the form of a vulnerable and fragile child

Chris and Julie Edmond from Devon said on the news this morning that they will have their best Christmas ever this year. I’m sure they are right because their daughter Lottie is the youngest person ever to survive a liver transplant. She had the transplant at 5 weeks old – can you imagine that? – and is doing brilliantly well now.

We all know how vulnerable and fragile babies and children can be and so it is an incredible truth that God Almighty, King of the Universe, should choose to show his power and authority by taking the form of a vulnerable child. People often say, “Christmas is for the children” and they are right, if we are prepared to become children again. Jesus said to Nicodemus that if he was to know God, he had to be born again. Jesus said to his disciples, “Let the children come to me. To such as these belong the Kingdom of God”. The message of the Nativity is that we need to become children again. We need to recover child-like qualities so that we can be struck afresh with the awe and wonder of the Christian message.

And child-like qualities begin, I believe, in recovering the skill of dependence. We need to recover the skill of dependence so that we can depend on God solely for our joy and our salvation. The problem is that we are too old to experience the joy and wonder of Christmas. We have grown too cynical, too self-reliant, to stop and look into a simple crib and gaze adoringly at a little baby who has become our salvation. But Christ is our salvation and in the midst of the uncertainty of this world, at this deeply traumatic period in history, we need to learn to depend on God again for our wisdom and our way forward.

First, then, God chose the humble shepherds to witness his glory.

Second, God chose a humble baby to reveal his glory.

Third, and finally…

3. God in Christ did not wear royal robes but strips of cloth

What humility is signified in this. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has ultimate power and authority is clothed not in royal robes but in strips of cloth. It’s no coincidence, that there are only two times in the life of Jesus when he is wrapped in strips of cloth. The first is here in Luke 2:7: “Mary gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger.” The second time is in John 19:40 after the crucifixion: “Taking Jesus’ body, the two [disciples] wrapped it in strips of cloth [and laid him in the tomb]”.

Jesus began life in strips of cloth in a manger.

Jesus ended life in strips of cloth in a tomb.

From manger to tomb, Jesus exhibited royal power not through force but in acts of love and compassion.

From manger to tomb, Jesus showed us that authority is not to be grasped but is worked out through service and through love.

Whatever else you remember from this Christmas, remember the strips of cloth in the manger and the strips of cloth in the tomb and remember the power of love exhibited through humility and service and seek to emulate that way of living in your life.

So in this Nativity story, we find three very important truths about the values of the Kingdom of God:

First, the glory of God is witnessed by the humble and poor in spirit – the shepherds.

Second, the glory of God is revealed in humble human form – the baby Jesus.

Third, the glory of God is displayed in humble clothing – the strips of cloth.

Quirinius may have been a power hungry Governor of Syria. The Roman Empire may have had a political stranglehold on the region. Emperor Augustus may have been called ‘Lord and Saviour’. But this Christmas night – the true Lord and Saviour has been born among us, not wielding might and weapons of war, not with the power of an earthly Kingdom, not wearing royal robes fit for an earthly king. Our Lord and Saviour chooses this night to show us a different way, a better way for the world and for ourselves…

Humility, compassion, frailty and vulnerability: these are the attitudes of heart which reveal the values of the Kingdom of God.

If you are feeling humbled tonight through the loss of power and status in your professional life as a result of the economic crisis: the Kingdom of God is near to you.

If you are in need of compassion tonight through a sense of loneliness and being misunderstood: the Kingdom of God is near to you.

If you are feeling frail tonight through sickness or the process of aging that may be sapping your strength: the Kingdom of God is near to you.

If you are feeling vulnerable tonight through grief, bereavement, financial worries or any other life circumstance: the Kingdom of God is near to you.

The Kingdom of God is near to you.

It has been revealed through this little baby, wrapped in strips of cloth; our Lord, our Saviour.

In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I have come that you may have life in all its fullness”. The invitation is there for each one of us tonight…Let’s meet with Jesus tonight. Let the dear Christ-child enter in so that we may have a new start this Christmas and know what it means to have life in all its fullness.

Sermon on 'Immanuel - God with us'

In our reading from Isaiah 7, we heard the words: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

In our reading from Matthew 1, we heard the words: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel— which means, God with us.”

Do you remember the 69 days from 5 August 2010 to 13 October 2010? Maybe the dates don’t ring a bell for you. But if I asked if you remember the 33 Chilean miners stuck underground, I’m sure you remember that: it was a story that had the whole world gripped and all of us, I’m sure, will remember the images of them being rescued one at a time, being brought out by capsule from their tomb 700 metres underground. It was story of the triumph of the human spirit. It was a story of the triumph of a community coming together in a time of need. It was a story of resurrection. It was a story of hope over despair. You will remember the camp that the families lived in called Campamento Esperanza – which means Camp Hope. You may remember the birth on 15 September of the miner’s child who was named Esperanza: Hope. That one episode showed us, more than anything else of the importance of Hope for the human condition.

We all need Hope. If we have no Hope, we have nothing…

The Christmas message, which we celebrate tonight, is fundamentally a message of Hope. It is not a pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking type of hope that holds out for a better future for the world. The Christian message is one of Hope that is firmly founded on a historical reality: Immanuel – God with us.

The fact that God is with us is the source of all our hopes: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” - that’s what we have just sung, isn’t it?

Immanuel – God with us: that’s what I want to think about tonight. What does it mean? There are three aspects we need to consider as we answer this question: First, what did ‘Immanuel’ mean to Isaiah? Second, what did ‘Immanuel’ mean to Matthew? Third, what does ‘Immanuel’ mean to us?

What did ‘Immanuel’ mean to Isaiah?

The reading we had from Isaiah 7 has a conversation between Isaiah and King Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz was a bad man, not averse to sacrificing his children to the gods and generally not the sort of guy you’d want to go on holiday with. At that time, the Assyrian empire was strong and Syria and Israel wanted to form an alliance with King Ahaz of Judah to stand against the Assyrians.

Now we’ve been hearing a lot about political treaties this week! But on this occasion, Ahaz didn’t act decisively: he wavered about a decision and so Syria and Israel formed an alliance against him instead. They wanted to put another King on the throne of Judah who would join them against the superpower of Assyria. Now King Ahaz was feeling pretty scared about this so Isaiah the prophet was called in to calm him down and the message of comfort he brought is what we heard read earlier. And the message was very simple: “Ahaz, if you trust in God, it will all be alright…” And Isaiah promised Ahaz that God would give him a sign that it would all be OK: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” The sign of God’s faithfulness would be a little baby and if Ahaz would only trust God there would be peace in the nation and his land would become a place flowing with milk and honey.

Well, to cut a long story short, Ahaz didn’t trust in God on the matter and things didn’t go well for him: but that’s a sermon for another day…

What’s important for us tonight is that, for Isaiah, this baby called Immanuel would be a sign of God’s deliverance and faithfulness, a sign of God’s healing presence, bringing wholeness and security and salvation. To Isaiah, this child Immanuel – ‘God with us’ was the ultimate sign of Hope.

What did ‘Immanuel’ mean to Matthew?

The name ‘Immanuel’ is only found three times in the Bible. The first is Isaiah 7:14 – we’ve looked at that. The second is Isaiah 8:8 – where the prophet says, “Immanuel - God is with us! His outspread wings protect the land”. The third and final time is in Matthew 1:23, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel— which means, God with us.”

Well, of course, Matthew is using it in a metaphorical sense because the baby was called Jesus by name but called Immanuel by nature – because he was God with us: the sign and the reality of God in our midst. For Matthew, Immanuel was the breaking in of God into time: as we will be hearing in our reading in a few minutes the Word became Flesh: God with us.

For Isaiah, Immanuel would be the Hope of Israel. For Matthew, Immanuel is the Hope for the whole world. It is in Christ, Immanuel – God with us – that our Hope resides.

In the economic crisis – God is with us.

In the war zones of the world – God is with us.

In the midst of poverty and abuse – God is with us.

In all the trials and tribulations, Immanuel – God is with us and it is only in Christ that we have hope for a renewed future. And that is why Matthew calls Jesus ‘Immanuel’ so that the whole world will be pointed towards him as our Messiah as our Good News, as our Hope for the future…

And so we come to the third, and most important, question:

What does ‘Immanuel’ mean to you?

If ‘Immanuel’ is the source of all Hope, I wonder what it is that you are hoping for this Christmas-time? For some of us, it may be security of employment. For some of us, it may be an easing of financial worries. For some, reconciliation where a relationship has been broken. For others, physical or mental healing.

What do you hope for this Christmas time?

Whatever it is that we are hoping for, the good news is the same for us all. ‘Immanuel’ – God is with us

In your darkness, in your trials, in your anxieties: ‘Immanuel’ – God is with you.

In your pain, in your frailty, in your brokenness: ‘Immanuel’ – God is with you.

In your fears, in your hurt, in your insecurities: ‘Immanuel’ – God is with you.

The message of Christmas is not a fairy tale for the children. It is a hard reality of God breaking into the brokenness of our world: ‘Immanuel’ – God is with us. That is the good news of Christmas

Whatever storms you may be going through this Christmas time remember ‘Immanuel’ – God is with you. And when we are convinced of ‘Immanuel’, God with us, we have the strength and confidence to face the trials of life as well as the focus to celebrate the joys of life too.

May I wish each and every one of you a peaceful and blessed Christmas full of the knowledge and awareness and experience of Immanuel, God with you. Amen.